There are a number of CMU grad students attending, and I'll be thinking of how to get CMU Sphinx and Festival working. OpenVXI, the SpeechWorks open source VoiceXML interpreter already uses SpiderMonkey, and SALT ("Speech Application Language Tags") looks like a good thing to consider in the same framework.

Flames? Well, I didn't get the flames I deserved earlier this week, but I got a wee one CMU-internally, for posting Mozilla to CS. Only one though, so I did pretty well.

As for the leash -- we got a puppy.

Monday February 25, 2002

08:29 PM

Rotterdam PM

I'm happy to see the news from Jouke about the nascent Rotterdam Perl Mongers. If I get a chance, I'd like to visit the next time I'm in Europe. I have a lot of respect for Jouke.

He's doing interesting work with pVoice, a free interface for augmentive and assistive communications. I had the pleasure of talking to him at YAPC::Europe in Amsterdam, 2001, where he played an active role. I don't know quite how, but I still want to build a good Dutch voice, possibly from Rotterdam:) for his daughter Krista. She is a real inspiration, and she needs a voice that suits her -- that can't be stuck at one age. I expect it will be several voices, as she gets older, though they may come from the same voice donor.

05:57 AM

It begins

One thing that's been on my mind the is question of how to build a sustainable growth model for the Perl Foundation, with all the issues that creates. There isn't going to be any one thing that's going to do it; it's a good thing I'm not the only one working on it. Part of the problem is that there are so many good people in the Perl community, and few can be publicly supported. That, and there are a thousand and one small projects that need money -- targeted donations seem to be working for these.

I've heard from some folks in industry "Perl does everything I want it to do, right now. What's to develop?" It's true that Perl is incredibly useful as it is, but the Perl 6 development (and other things) is going to need a lot of things in play to get going, such as DBI/DBD support, which is the backbone of many of the large installations....Not to mention how much needs to happen on Perl 6 itself; the substantial changes coming in, and the progress on Parrot, are already revealing that Perl 6 is going to be a very real step forward. Faster, safer, cheaper (in terms of resource usage), better.

I think it's difficult to come back each year, kicking off a new funding campaign and asking for individuals to donate once again. People have been amazingly good and generous, but it can't be presented as "contribute or there will be a disaster." The benefits have to be clear, and Damian gave us a lot in his first year that shows how useful it can be. This year, Larry, Damian, and Dan can get a lot done, especially if we raise the whole ambitious amount. The individual contributions have been fantastic, and so have the corporate donations.

Oh, and I have to give Randal (merlyn++) points for the fundraising he's been doing, and matching at talks.